Game On: 'Heavenly Sword'

Published 10:00 pm, Thursday, September 20, 2007

Rated: Teen Platform: PlayStation3 (SCEE)

Heavenly about sums it up -- I haven't had this much fun playing a game in recent memory.

We're talking so much fun that I couldn't be bothered to dwell on the shortcomings, of which there are a few (the game's a bit short and the minigames can get frustrating). "Heavenly Sword" is an action adventure game of the highest order, ingeniously designed so even the button-combo challenged can feel like a master. Technically adept gamers will feel like a god.

As soon as the game loads, it's obvious that obsessive attention was paid to the visual quality. I was having difficulty paying attention to the back story, reduced, instead, to gawking at the level of graphical detail flowing out of the PS3. Our hero, Nariko, is a striking, hi-res beauty depicted in the CGI scenes down to skin pores and battle scars.

Her family has been charged with keeping a sword of unstoppable power safe from evildoers. The catch is that whoever wields the sword in battle slowly dies. In a fresh narrative approach, the game opens with Nariko apparently succumbing to the sword's life-suck, with the rest of the game told through flashback. It seems that King Bohan, motion-captured and voiced with relish by Andy Serkis (aka Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy), desires the sword for world domination. Nariko's father gives her the celestial blade shortly before he's captured by Bohan.

The relative depth of the characters is key to the game's success. Nariko, on a vengeful spree that leads to self-discovery, is joined by her adopted sister Kai, also playable in sections of the game. Kai is a charmingly odd, cat-like girl distracted by visions. She also packs a mean, arrow-shooting contraption that breaks up the combat sections with some welcome sniping. King Bohan is every bit the repulsive baddie, spewing twisted quips and taking great pleasure in others' pain.

The real fun revolves around Nariko's stunning combat animations and the accessible control scheme. If you are a button-masher, you'll still get some satisfying, if unpredictable, flurries of destruction from Nariko. If you dig into the different combos and moves available, you'll find a deep system that will take hours to discover. Either way, when Nariko faces off against hoards of Bohan's minions, which happens a lot, the result is an apocalypse of grace and gore that is a glorious sight to behold.